


Requiescat In Pace

by spicycronch



Category: The Property of Hate
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - World War I, Light Entertainment, M/M, Reapers, kind of its just the time period
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicycronch/pseuds/spicycronch
Summary: It's much easier to be unseen and hated.Magnus takes souls and leads them to the next life, but he's never wanted to hold on to one so badly.





	Requiescat In Pace

**Author's Note:**

> I should make these AUs into a series or something. I can't seem to write in the canon universe.

They always said that he was early or came too soon. That was perhaps the most annoying part. Magnus could come at any point he wished, and it was always right on schedule. Some people begged for him to come earlier, felt his touch and pleaded for mercy. Others stared him directly in the eyes and said “not today”. The strangest ones were the people who did both. 

He’d had plenty who’d flirted with him before. Daredevils and adrenaline junkies, addicts and alcoholics. The blond was neither. The actor’s posters amused him to no end- he was indeed death-defying. He defied the rules that Magnus had bound himself to, though there was no one to hold him to his own promises. Those rules had been broken before. They’d been broken by Magnus’ friends and colleagues. Houdini was beloved for a long while, until his escapades against the world of spirits embittered the Reaper who claimed him. Houdini was gifted a quick death, one that would leave his work untainted. It was more difficult now to show that kind of favoritism. Mortals noticed when one of their own lived longer than they should have, and Magnus never cared for the heroes that tried to end his hold on humanity. Oh, those heroes that fought for their own lives were fine. They would ask him for a little longer, usually for their friends and family. Or they had a task that they needed to complete. Depending on how they pleaded or how they demanded more time determined whether or not Magnus would listen. Some of his co-workers denied mortals more time on principle, while others would let their charges live until even the mortal admitted that it was time to move on. Magnus usually let his mortals stay, at least for a little while. He was in no rush. 

Yet that actor… 

Humans loved to have things in a linear path. Magnus didn’t have that urge, being as timeless as he was. Whenever Magnus felt particularly nostalgic, he’d go back to the 1400s in Europe or maybe return Pharaoh Unas’ entombment if he really wanted an ego boost. He didn’t particularly care for such a boring, straightforward route that ignored the complexities that his existence implied but jumping through eras took too much effort. It wasn’t something to use frivolously, but it wasn’t something that he had to use sparingly either. Much like an airplane ride, his coworker had said once. Useful for business and pleasure, but not worth it when something was just a few decades away. So the linear path. The linear path was definitely easier to explain… easier to point out his mistakes and reflect on what was to come. So he would begin there.  

Magnus was there when Roy was born. It wasn’t his job. It was the exact opposite of his job, in fact, but childbirth was always difficult for even the strongest of mortals. He allowed the mother to live long enough to hold her child before complications left her still and pale. Magnus took her soul by the hand and convinced her to move on. She couldn’t stay, having already died, and her infant son would only resent her if she haunted him for the rest of his time on earth. In the next life, maybe, she would live to a ripe old age and be able to see her children grow up. Magnus took her by the hand and led her to the bridge, only sparing a glance at the child. Sad, maybe, but it was a familiar sight. 

That first interaction allowed him to know the boy’s soul by the next encounter. The tugging on his wrist led him to the Bristol Avon, and Magnus knew that this one would be a drowning. It was there that he saw the child, and he knew that this was going to be a hard one to convince. The same bitterness that took Magnus’ coworker had taken the father. Roy tried so hard, poor child. That much was obvious, but that wasn’t what made Magnus pause. No, it was when the child was playing by the river. It would have been time. It was far, far too common for three-year-olds to wander off and get hurt. Even Magnus felt the pain of these children’s passing. Their souls always were tinged with wasted potential, of needless suffering before the end. Magnus always tried to make their deaths quick and painless, or at least fast when the latter wasn’t possible. What made Roy different was looking up from the water and seeing Magnus. He gasped and fell into the water, swept under the current. 

Magnus didn’t say anything, didn’t have a revelation or grand epiphany. But his curiosity was piqued. A child who could see him. That wasn’t rare, but one whose death was caused by seeing him? Or perhaps instead he could…. 

Magnus made sure that the child didn’t feel pain before he was rescued. The world had enough dying children. This one could wait a little longer before taking Magnus’ hand and crossing the bridge to his next life. He could finish up some loose ends instead, maybe pick up a few of the hospital cases. Just because that child was his primary charge didn’t mean that he had to take the boy’s life right away. What were a few years? Even for humans, they passed in the blink of an eye. Civilizations were born and raised in the time that it took Magnus to take a breath, and entire empires collapsed in the second it took for these mortals to gasp. He would let the boy live while Magnus entertained himself with other assignments.

That continued for a long time. Magnus took his time in the wards, and the wars left him far busier than any in the past. He hadn’t been this booked since the last plague, and it was only when he felt a faint tugging on his wrist that he realized his charge was  _ in the battlefield _ . 

“The war to end all wars. They said that about reunification, but look how well  _ that _ turned out for their dynasties,” Magnus said to himself, unsurprised by the looks from several of the injured. They were close enough to dying anyway, and he didn’t doubt that his fellow Reapers were close behind him. The trenches were filled with muddy rainwater. A few of them would probably drown if their injuries didn’t take them first. Well, you couldn’t save everyone. He learned that quickly, eons ago. Magnus inspected the wound- a trifling affair involving metal pieces and a few pieces of liver- and couldn’t help but feel mildly annoyed by the blood and shrapnel. “You humans are so leaky. Spilling things this way and that.”

“Harsh,” his charge coughed out, looking so pale with red splattered across his skin.

“Oh. That’s new.” He didn’t know that mortals could hear him while close to death. They couldn’t… Magnus filed through the memories and realized that that was the reason he hadn’t taken that child years ago. 

“What? People don’t lu- lo- look you in the eyes and tell you to bugger off?” 

“They don’t respond when I talk to them.” Magnus ignored the soldier’s false bravado and disarming smile to focus on the wound. It would have killed him, but… he was a terrible soldier. Like most, he never belonged in this war in the first place. That was a good enough reason to delay this a tiny bit more. Magnus let a muted, chromatic grey light spill from his hands and over the man’s wound. There were hints of color- small bits of blue and red and magenta- but there weren’t bright or vibrant. He wasn’t healing Roy after all. Magnus was just making the wound a little less deadly. A lot less deadly, but it would still hurt like hell for a long time. Roy’s golden eyes grew dull as pain overpowered his will to stay awake. Death-defying. His survival would be death-defying, because Roy understood death enough to refuse him. 


End file.
